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A Pioneer Who Turned the Center of Las Vegas Casino into Theme Park카테고리 없음 2022. 6. 19. 14:13
A Pioneer Who Turned the Center of Las Vegas Casino into Theme Park
Kirk Kerkorian was born in 1917 to a Armenian Jewish family in Fresno, California.
When he was 16 years old he dropped out of the school but won Pacific welterweight boxing championship, showing his potential as a boxer.
However in 1939 one incident changed his life forever.
When he turned 22 in 1939 while he was installing a water heater for 45 cents,
he was offered a tour of Californian coastline.
After riding a plane for the first time in his life, he completely became mesmerized with flying.
In order to learn flying, he decides to look after cows and milk of the flight school teacher
in exchange for free lessons.
He succeeds in acquiring a pilot license after 6 months of training
and found a job as a pilot trainer for combat planes.
In WWII he joined Royal Air Force and after the war in 1944, he would fly his first commercial flight to Las Vegas.
He was only 27 years old.
After which he gathered wealth by working as an aviator.
Then in 1946 he paid 60,000USD to buy a plane and established his own company under the name 'Trans International Air',
targeting travelers to and from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
He took out a loan from Seagram to invest in old aircraft and fighter jets, fuel, etc.,
and began to earn larger sum of money.
While accumulating seed money through running his small airline business, Kerkorian
began to take interest in gambling.
He loved it to the point of addiction, sometimes losing 50,000 to 80,000USD a day.
Then he slowly began to dream about the future of Las Vegas.
In 1962 he purchased 80 acres of land in Las Vegas strip for 960,000USD
which was very big amount of money at that time.
With this purchase he became a tycoon figure in Las Vegas.
The Strip is where the largest casino hotels are gathered.
It is where Kerkorian's City Center is located.
In 1967 he bought Flamingo Hotel for 12,500,000USD, which was built by 'Bugsy' Siegel
and Kerkorian renovated it to start his casinosite business.
The theme of the hotel was Caribbean.
Suitable to its name, the hotel has 3 swimming pools of 15 acres
and 10 restaurants.
The guests can see various animals like the jackass penguin,
flamingo, fancy carp, water falls and grass from its famous garden
which makes it one of the most popular photogenic places even now.
His renovated Flamingo paved the way for themed hotels.
In 1968 Kerkorian sold parts of The Strip to Jay Sarno for 9,000,000USD which later is
where the famous Caesars Palace -- the pioneer of themed hotels--was built.
With construction cost of 25,000,000USD, the motto of Caesars Palace was
'everyone in Caesars is like a Caesar'.
Of course, people can't help but be drawn to such motto.